Author:
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 10, 2004
Human life in India is woefully
cheap, but some lives are cheaper than others. Last week, on Gandhi Jayanti,
there were serial bomb blasts and terrorist attacks all over Assam and
in Dimapur, Nagaland's commercial hub. In just two days, some 60 people
added their names to the unending list of terror victims. Last Independence
Day, an explosion in Dhemaji led to the death of 16 schoolchildren.
As the incidents took place in
Assam and Nagaland, rather than Bhiwandi or Begusarai - the catchment areas
of low-brow TV news channels - the outrage was predictably muted. Yes,
the Home Minister who had been repeatedly alerted to the threat by IB,
did take the first special plane east and mouthed a few inanities. The
former Home Minister and now Leader of Opposition L K Advani held a Press
conference about the UPA Government's mishandling of internal security,
which politically-correct Editors relegated to less than a column on the
inside page. And there, apart from a one-day controversy over the US Ambassador's
offer to call the FBI for investigations, the national supply of crocodile
tears ended.
With colossal callousness, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, who has sworn on affidavit that he is a permanent
resident of Assam, did not even visit the State that has provided him a
Rajya Sabha berth for two terms. No one berated him for this astonishing
lapse.
Our dominant sense of nation these
days appears to be determined by a blend of North Indian mofussil insularity
and noveau-riche cretinism. In this hierarchy of values, N-E comes at the
bottom. The region has become synonymous with a thousand insurgencies waged
by mysterious outfits, known only by their acronyms. It has become synonymous
with grandiose announcements by successive prime ministers of thousand-crore
packages that disappear without trace. In the Indian bureaucracy, an N-E
posting is like incarceration in Siberia.
In the months to come, it is possible
that the problems of the north-east may be injected with a dash of glamour
and even find their way into the proceedings of conflict-resolution workshops
sponsored by angst-ridden Scandinavians.
Washington isn't interested in the
Assamese or Bodo insurgents because of some desire to destabilise India
or promote Christianity in the region. Its offer of FBI assistance was
prompted by the recognition that Bangladesh, like Indonesia, Malaysia and
Thailand, is becoming an important outpost of radical Islamism outside
the Arab world.
There are three problems in the
region. The first centres on insurgents whose activities cover territory
from Nepal to Myanmar. These groups, in turn, are linked to the heart of
India through terror groups like the People's War, whose leaders are now
being feted as State guests in Andhra Pradesh.
The second problem is the network
of madarsas covering the Terai belt, Assam, Bengal and Bangladesh. These
madarsas have served as facilitation centres for the indoctrination and
military training given to at least 5,000 Assamese Muslims in Bangladesh
and, in some cases, Pakistan. They form a reserve army of jehadis.
Finally, there is illegal immigration
from Bangladesh that has led to the border districts of Bihar, West Bengal
and Assam becoming Muslim-majority zones.
The past three years have seen the
three strands coming together under a unified command based in Bangladesh
but remote-controlled from Islamabad. It is this grand alliance of north-eastern
insurgents, radical Islamists and the Bangladesh Government that has made
threat to national security more potent.
After Punjab and Kashmir, we are
seeing rapid evolution of another insurgency aimed at bleeding India. Of
course, it will be fought with gusto. But the robustness of India's response
will be greater if national attitude to N-E problems isn't laced with indifference
or condescension.
The killings in Assam and Nagaland
have a direct bearing on our future in Delhi and Mumbai.
